Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, again, this has been an interesting debate. As was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, there are persuasive arguments to change the current approach to redress and criminal negligence more widely. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, that the Government’s response was short and not really sweet.
The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, is right to draw a distinction between schemes of redress and wider clinical negligence issues. The noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, has a later amendment dealing with specific recommendations on redress for the patient groups that she examined in her report. I took her argument for a redress agency to have much wider implications and considerations. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, expressed surprise at the wording of my Amendment 67. I simply sought to bring this back, so that we could have a wider discussion, as well as deal with the issues raised around the three patient groups in the noble Baroness’s report.
I have never understood why the redress Act was put on the statute book but never implemented. It is clear from talking to experts that it is regarded as flawed, but it is interesting that no Government have picked this up. Equally, we all accept that redress schemes for individual patient groups are an appropriate way forward. However, we are left with a system for criminal negligence that I simply do not believe works.
I heard what the Minister said about improvements for NHS Resolution, but the fundamental argument is that the system is getting more and more expensive—the £80 billion-plus question, as the Minister said. For patients and their relatives, it can be a daunting process, even though, as he said, more can be dealt with prior to going to court. But when the cases do go to court, NHS Resolution tends to lose them. We go back to the size of awards, where the issue, in essence, is that the NHS has to pay twice because of the way that the 1948 legislation was drafted.
At the end of the day, surely we need a thorough review of the whole issue of redress and clinical negligence. I can see that the Government do not yet accept the recommendations of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege. In the end, we have to start with a clean sheet of paper to see if we can do better by patients, the NHS and all the individuals affected. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment 67 withdrawn.